‘Waking Nightmare’ Could Be a Visitation

Dear Cynthia: For the past several months I’ve been having the worst waking nightmares of my life. I say waking because I can’t figure out if I’m really dreaming these things or I’m awake and they’re actually happening, or both. In these “dreams,” I wake up in my bedroom, with everything as it normally is but I see and feel things that terrify me.

For example, one night I found myself sitting up in bed hitting at something (some sort of light or group of lights) that was on my bed and coming toward me. I’m not sure what it was, but I knew it was going to harm me. I was screaming and moving all around trying to make it go away (I know I was screaming because my throat hurt).

In another example, I woke up and saw, above my doorway, a dismembered body. With this one, I kind of did a double take, and it wasn’t there the next time I looked (and I could swear I was awake).

I’ve never had this experience before. I’ve always had very vivid, story-like dreams and typical nightmares.

--A.G.

Huntington Beach

Dear A.G.: There could be several things happening here. One is that you are dreaming that you are awake. Many who have had this experience describe it as feeling absolutely real; they dream that they wake up, engage in some interaction or activity and then later actually wake up. They are typically left with a strange feeling of confusion. However, there is also the possibility that you are actually seeing the things you have described.

Ruling out the reflection of a street light or shadows created as cars drive by at night or any other physical occurrence that could appear otherworldly, others have claimed to see similar things.

The Skoll experiment conducted in England over the past decade included documentation of spirit orbs of light and dismembered body parts appearing as ectoplasm. According to investigators, these energies are not able to appear if they are not welcome. Actually saying, “Go away now, and don’t come back” is often sufficient to eliminate these visitations.

However, if these are more typical, symbolic dreams, you can ask yourself, “Do I feel threatened or attacked? Is some part of myself haunting me?”

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Cynthia Richmond is the author of “Dream Power: How to Use Your Night Dreams to Change Your Life” (Simon & Schuster, 2000). Fax your dreams to Cynthia Richmond at (818) 783-3267 or e-mail them to in.your.dreams@worldnet.att.net. Please include your hometown and a daytime phone number. In Your Dreams appears every Tuesday and should be read for entertainment purposes only.